Читать книгу I'll Be Watching You - M. William Phelps - Страница 20

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One of Mary Ellen’s daughters recalls those years of living with her alcoholic father and “bipolar” mother as turbulent and disordered—and also, she later told me, “a bit different from what my mom might tell you. It’s been an ongoing chaotic life. Never-ending.”

Diana was the younger of the two. She loves her mother and they speak every day. But the way Diana describes her life with Mary Ellen is quite a bit different from the way Mary Ellen remembered it. “My mother,” Diana said, “believes what she believes.” Mary Ellen had always tried to protect her kids from her husband’s abusive hand. Yet Diana left the house when she was sixteen. But not, she said, “by my own choice.” The house was an extreme environment.

Diana recalled punishment as being put in the corner for not a time-out, but for several hours. No dinner. No talking. No going to the bathroom. No television.

Mary Ellen, on the other hand, was trapped. Terrified. She couldn’t rescue the kids for fear of retaliation.

There was one time when Diana’s dad was cleaning his shotgun in the living room—or was he?—and it went off and buckshot destroyed one of the walls. A vivid memory for Diana was having to repanel the wall so no one would see it. “Everyday life was like that. Who knows if he was trying to kill my mother?”

When Mary Ellen finally got the courage to leave, it wasn’t, Diana said, as if she decided one day, That’s it. I can’t take this anymore. “We were literally running down the street in our pajamas away from him to the police two blocks away. She thought he was going to shoot us.”